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School

University of Toronto Scarborough

Department

Anthropology

Course

ANTA01H3

Professor

Mortenser

Semester

Winter

Description

Conformity in Individualistic Cultures
 Canada is an individualistic society, and therefore conformity suggests something negative
 yet Canadians often pride themselves on being agreeable and getting along with others
 there is a difference between conformity and compliance (social behaviour by an individual
that may be contrary to his/her beliefs but is exhibited nonetheless in order to achieve rewards
and avoid punishment)
 on the outside, compliance resembles conformity (ex: students follow attendance rules even
when they would rather skip class)
 in all forms, conformity is a social process that allows people to organize and function
effectively in society
 conformity allows groups to establish boundaries—members of social groups such as families,
peers and even countries are able to distinguish themselves
 conformity to certain beliefs of a group clarifies acceptable and unacceptable behaviours for
their members (ex: students are expected to conform to the school’s rules)
Conformity in Collectivistic Cultures
 conformity has various different meanings in collectivistic cultures—conformity takes
precedence over individuality
 actions, language, and dress are all determined by society; not meeting the group’s
expectations have more serious consequences than in individualistic cultures
 in Japan, conformity is vitally important—Japan is surrounded by oceans on all sides, which
limits living space, forcing Japanese people to live in close proximity to one another
 Japanese have had to relinquish some claims for personal space and rely on predictable
behaviour (due to conformity) to maintain social harmony and order
 Japan is changing, allowing for more individuals to express their identity
Breaking Social Norms: The Breaching Experiments
 Harold Garfinkel was interested in understanding what would happen if people purposely
broke the rules/norms of a group; he would then analyze people’s reactions to the breach  the focus of the experiment was having people break the unwritten rules of society (ex:
walking backwards up a flight of stairs, standing up while eating in a restaurant)
 Garfinkel’s experiments showed society resists breaches in social order and quickly attempts
to reconstruct order when a social norm has been broken
 ex: in society, you typically stand on right side of escalator and allow for people in a
rush to be on the left side—if someone stood on the left side, this would be a breach in
the unwritten rules of society
 these experiments who how people take for granted the unwritten social norms and come to
expect that certain things will always function in a specific way
Stanley Milg